


Beautiful Sorrows

by d4wndust



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), And angst, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Gay Zuko (Avatar), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Re-Telling, aang feels lost, aang will be a bit older, and they wont be together until the age difference isnt creepy, avatar retelling, half canon half au, what if aang fell in love with zuko, with some romantic undertones
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:28:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24623218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d4wndust/pseuds/d4wndust
Summary: What if Aang fell in love with Zuko? (Avatar The Last Airbender re-telling that loosely follows the narrative. I added a lot of my own details & characters etc.)
Relationships: Aang/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 119





	1. Chapter 1

It was to be a mercy that he would forget the details later. But in that before-moment when the shadow reached from the dark and yanked his sleeve and rose him from his sleep, he knew that the end had already arrived. 

And in that before-moment, just after the rising, he met the end with his arms held wide and his eyes wide open. The water enveloped Aang and he enshrined himself and his faithful friend in ice. And he waited. And he forgot.

***

It was a world with a painful history. And the history went: Four nations within a war, surrounded by suffering and without hope, for the Avatar was dead. The Fire Nation kept getting stronger, while water-benders and earth-benders descended into rarity, and air-benders into a myth. For one hundred years the war kept going and for one hundred years The Avatar was fading from people’s memories. Only one nation, the fire-benders, knew that The Avatar would return. The Avatar would return to bring peace and prosperity and justice. But the unjust seek no justice and so The Fire Nation’s son, a young prince named Zuko, was sent on a mission to bring the Avatar’s downfall. And it was this tortured prince that met the legend and became a part of one himself. For the Avatar and Prince, Aang and Zuko, created a new history, one less painful, together. But that, too, was history.

***

A sharp slash of pain pierced through Aang’s chest as the ice melted. He didn’t remember the time before when his heart was still, but once it jumped and started beating, it stung. He didn’t remember opening his eyes, but he did. They were bright and glowing and magical, Katara and Sokka would later account to Aang of their discovery of the boy in the ice. Not at all like a young boy’s, Katara would add. 

But Aang was a boy. A boy that was frozen in ice for a hundred years. A boy led by faith. A boy with the world on his shoulders. A boy who didn’t ask for any of this. 

A boy who got a second chance, at least this was what Aang decided to believe when he took his first leap in what felt like a hundred years – it was only a few days in that block of ice, _surely_ – into the air. 

He swooshed down, stuck his feet into the ice harder than necessary, as though lacking practice. Hopefully, the Master understood what being frozen by ice did to your coordination, Aang thought and smiled up at two wide-eyed people standing straight-backed in front of him. 

“Hello,” he wanted to say, but his throat closed up and scratched in ice, so he coughed instead. He felt the cold breath inside his cheek. 

The shorter of the two turned to the taller one and then pointed their eyes back at Aang. “I’m Katara. And who are you?”

“And how the hell did you get inside this ice block?!” the taller one added and pursed their lips. 

“Oh,” Aang face-palmed himself, remembering his Master again and his lessons (“Strength lay in manners, my dear boychek”) “My name’s Aang,” he said and grinned up at them.

“This is my brother Sokka,” Katara said and pointed at Sokka.

“And this is my _sister Katara_ ,” Sokka said and frowned at Katara. “Who likes to pretend she knows everything.”

Katara rolled her eyes. “It’s not my fault when you-“

“Fine, fine,” Sokka interjected. “It’s never your fault. Except when we catch fish I always end up soaked in water, and now we’re stranded here on an ice block with this foreigner who might be a spy.”

Katara gave Aang a once-over. 

“I’m not a spy,” Aang said. Whose spy would I be, he wondered. “Thank you for saving me, or…unfreezing me, would be more appropriate.” Aang looked at his pale hand and then to his saviors’ dark brown skin. He was a foreigner wherever he was, this was true. But where was he?

“Well, we’ll freeze again soon enough, and this time all three of us,” Sokka said and looked around. “What with being stranded and all that.”

Aang finally turned away from the two people – first people he’d seen in _days_!—and took notice of his surroundings. The Southern Pole! Or maybe the Northern Pole? But that would be impossible since it was too far away from…from…someplace he should by all rights remember. His head reverberated with recollections too faded and foreign to find. 

The icy water surrounded the bigger piece of floating ice where Aang, Katara, and Sokka stood, and where Appa, his faithful companion, lay. The air bit through Aang’s thin faded-orange linen shirt and his toes were freezing in sandals. He turned around and dug his fingers into Appa’s long soft fur of the color of snow, and Appa snorted and opened one eye. “Appa…you are _so_ tired”, Aang said. He knew that he’d never seen Appa so exhausted before, but he couldn’t locate the source of that knowledge.

“We’ll think of something,” Katara said. She and her brother wore thick fur coats and pants and boots. With hoods attached and gloved fingers, they must have been warm. Aang flew up into the air and then arrived onto Appa and melted into his warm fur. He loved this creature and it felt right.

“Hey!” Sokka said and pointed up at Aang, while Katara’s eyes widened. “You can…fly?! Katara, I told you there was something odd about him!”

“You’re an air-bender, aren’t you?” Katara asked.

Aang smiled and flew back down again. “Why, yes! Are you an air-bender, as well?”

Katara and Sokka laughed. “I’m a water-bender”, she said.

“Have you lived with your head in the snow for the past century?” Sokka said and laughed again. “An air-bender…Katara The Air-bender…”

“But who _are_ you really, Aang?” Katara approached Aang and took him by the arms. “Oh, you’re freezing. Of course.” She took off her coat and unpeeled the fur part and offered it to Aang who accepted gratefully as she put the coat back on.

Aang sighed in the contentment of another person’s heat. “I’m just Aang,” he shrugged and grinned. “And this is Appa, my friend, and a sky bison.”

“A what?” Sokka frowned.

“A sky bison,” Aang said. “Means he can fly.”

Sokka and Katara laughed again.

“You must be insane,” Sokka said and Katara said: “Oh, let him be. He had just been unfrozen from ice. Who knows how long he’s been here.”

“It’s only been a few days, I think,” Aang said. “But Appa _can_ fly. Let me un-strand you.”

“Un-strand us? What, like fly us to land with this…flying…Appa?”

“Yes. Hop on!” Aang said and swirled up into the air and onto Appa again.

“I can’t believe you’re an air-bender. I can’t believe this.” Katara said and climbed Appa. Aang held up a hand and pulled her all the way up into the seat. Sokka followed, but not without a complaint. Only when Appa jumped up and then down onto the surface of the water Aang realized he would take time to recover and fly again. Sokka smirked at Aang as if to say I told you so, no such big creature can fly. They must have never seen a flying bison before, Aang thought, or read about one either.

“Oh, good! At least we got to our village,” Katara said as Sokka was still gloating at Aang’s flying bison when they arrived at their village, a few low cabins made from ice. Katara’s and Sokka’s home.

The whole village welcomed Aang but was also wary of him. Especially the elders. Aang understood. He did not look like he belonged. All three of them were taken to a bigger ice cabin with a long table in the middle where they were served bowls of rice. There, the village elder, Katara and Sokka’s grandmother, questioned Aang.

He never felt this hungry in his entire life, he thought. Between the juicy rice and a warm new coat and boots, and a comfortable chair, he let himself be tired at last. But when the question of where he came from was aimed at him, a kind of dread drove through him and denied him peace of mind he thought he had. There was someone…somewhere…something he should do. Someone he should be. “…but I don’t know who I am,” he said. 

“Well,” the village head said, “it will come back to you, boy.” She patted him on the back and left him alone.

“Aang,” Katara said and lay her hand onto his forearm. It felt so strange to be touched. Aang almost flinched every time someone would do it. “You don’t remember anything?”

Aang shook his head and looked into Katara’s deep brown eyes. He felt like he knew her for a long time now, although they just met. “I…”

“Grannie’s right, your memories will come back. You must have had a shock being frozen like that and surviving. It’s unheard of.” Katara got up, “Let me show you your new room.”

***

Aang’s exhaustion rendered him paralyzed in both sleep and dreams. And dreams soon turned to nightmares. And nightmares showed him snippets of straying memories. And memories snapped him to reality. And reality brought well…reality. Tears. One particular memory he couldn’t believe he’d ever forgotten. One day in the past when he wished he could be anyone else but himself. The day he found out he was The Avatar.

Muffling his tears, his head wished he could go back to the darkness of sleep, but his body only just waking up from ice needed exercise and movement and _life_.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay,” he whispered to himself in the dawn of day. His ice room inside a small cabin was dark but warm enough. Stray light of a new day touched the walls and drew shadow mountains. He stared into these shadows on the wall and he searched for the shape of his home. Only when fresh tears muddled his eyesight, had he found the familiar mountain tops in those shadows on the wall.

He knew what he had to do. 

He also knew that before going home, he had a rare opportunity to make new friends, friends not raised in a monastery, friends who wouldn’t see him as something he was yet to become, but as someone, he already was – just Aang, a boy whose childhood had not been stolen.

After breakfast, Aang talked Katara into going exploring. The village head permitted them to waste some time, but only because Katara said Aang would teach her water-bending. Aang knew he hadn’t mastered water-bending yet, and even if he did, he couldn’t reveal himself to Katara. He didn’t want to. But he promised to give Katara lessons he learned as an air-bender. 

“If you want to bend water, you cannot show fear,” was what he told her when she tried to stop him from going into a carcass of an old rusty boat. 

“There could be traps,” Katara told him, but followed him in nevertheless. 

“This looks like it’s been here for a hundred years,” Aang said and touched the rusty wall. His fingers got black from dirt.

“Maybe it was,” Katara said. “Maybe it was one of the first boats from the beginning of the Fire War.”

“The Fire War?” Aang said and picked up a book among the castaway cups, rusty cutlery, and unnamed things from the dusty frozen floor. It was yellow and brown and wet, but it used to be scriptures of piano music. Another memory sneaked upon him. A big brown clavier and his Master getting angry with him. He couldn’t remember why.

“…our dad and they still haven’t returned from the war,” Katara said.

Aang dropped the book. “Wait, what do you mean war? What war?”

“Haven’t you been listening? Aang, I think…you might have been in that ice longer than you think.”

Aang shook his head. “No, I…I couldn’t be in there for more than a few days,” he grinned and rushed forward down the dark corridor inside the dark shipwreck.

“Aang!” Katara called after him. Aang knew she must be right. He must have been asleep for a long, long time. But he couldn’t entertain that thought, not yet. There could be some other explanation he wasn’t remembering. There must be.

“Katara, watch this,” Aang said and created an air resistance that he sat onto and flew down another hallway. He missed flying like this.

When Katara caught up, she frowned. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, you know, “ she said and touched Aang’s back. He felt a strange urge to throw himself into her arms and cry so the fishes in the sea would hear him. Yell so the birds in the sky would understand him. But he moved away instead. And as he stepped forward his foot caught a wire on the floor.

“Oh, no,” he said and looked up at a flare just as it shot through the ceiling near them and flew up. Its explosion shook Aang’s ears. He blinked his eyes and saw a million little red fiery pieces falling onto the sea and hissing in one last hurrah. 

“Fire,” was all Katara breathed out. 

“It’s going to be okay,” he said, “It was just some fireworks.”

“No, Aang,” she shook her head, “it’s The Fire Nation. It’s a danger. It’s…incredibly stupid what we’ve done.”

Once they were back at the village, Sokka was already waiting for them. He usually trained young boys and girls aged varying from three to fifteen-year-old like Sokka himself, at this time of day. Now, these boys stood beside him as he officially threw Aang out of their village. Words like “knew you were trouble” and “probably a spy after all” and “even the flying is a trick” were all pointed at Aang.

“Please, Sokka, don’t make it more of a big deal than–“ Katara pleaded. 

“Oh, it’s a big deal,” the village head crept upon them. Her face was serious and wise. “I told you not to go there, Katara. I warned you and you listened. Now, this boy appears out of ice and I warn him, but he does not listen. Our village works only if we all agree to listen and to take care of each other. Today, you chose to disregard your family. And I know mistakes happen, Katara, but in the time of war, even one mistake is a mistake too many.”

“I’m sorry, Grandma,” Katara said and bowed her head.

“I know you are, child,” she said, “but Aang,” she pierced Aang’s bright eyes with her dark ones, “I could say we cannot feed another mouth and that would be a valid reason for letting you go. But I’m a believer in the truth, and the truth is I don’t trust you. And the times are not fruitful to sow trust between us because we might not live long enough to reap it.”

Aang bowed and said: “I understand. Thank you for your generosity. Thank you for saving me, Katara. Sokka,” and he left.

Katara tried to follow at first. Saying how she’d go with him and learn water-bending and meet other water-benders, but Aang told her he couldn’t get in the way of her and her family. He shouldn’t. 

Now lying next to Appa, he was thinking. He had a family at the monastery. He might never have had a mother and a father, but he had friends and people who raised him. If he’d been in the ice for years, where would they be now? 

Before Appa could fly again, that same day Aang left the village, The Fire Nation came. And they came searching for The Avatar. And Aang knew his destiny would always find a way to remind him of what he was. 

And he would not run from it. 


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fire Nation takes Aang captive.

A tall cargo ship with dark orange and brown patterned flag was anchored in the distance, at sea. From its direction, small boats packed with the Fire Nation soldiers neared the village. Every time Aang blinked, they'd approached closer and closer toward them. The wind beat at their coats and pulled at their hoods like a vengeful spirit. A premonition. Aang stood above the beach, atop the hill in the snow, next to the village Head, looking out at these visitors. Conquerors.  _ Enemies _ , the villagers had said.

„We've been preparing for this, right guys?“ Sokka said to a dozen children whose brows pinched and mouths pulled back in dissatisfaction and fear. 

„And girls,“ one girl said but was drowned out by the war sounds of the Fire Nation approaching.

„We knew this day was coming,“ Sokka said and turned to Aang, accusing. 

Aang said nothing. He apologized a dozen times already, while Sokka raved and rambled about consequences and actions. He was right, Aang knew, it was his fault that the Fire Nation was coming. But they were coming for him and him alone. The others didn’t know that yet.

“Sokka, get the other children safe,” the village head said, leaning onto her thick wooden staff. Her strong leather coat with a fur hood and ornamentations around the sleeves transformed her into a statue of a historical figure. She knew which actions to take when taking action was hard.

“But—“

“Now, Sokka,” she repeated, “I will not be another adult sending children to fight my wars.”

“This isn’t your war, it’s theirs,” Katara said and pointed her hand at the approaching boats. 

A woman with a pale circle of skin on her dark chin ran up to the village head and said: “We have them on aim.”

“Fire at will,” the old woman said to the other. This one nodded and gave a signal to others situated above them, in ice. Their bows and hats protruded out of the white snow. 

Aang heard before he saw the pull of the bows and the release of arrows. The sky was clear and pale and painted by flying arrows of varying colors. Some were as red as blood, others as blue as Katara’s coat, but all intended to bring death. He looked out at the sea and was prepared to stop this bloodshed when he noticed that all arrows hit the wood of the boats, or dove into the sea. Aang turned toward the village Head, preparing to beg for the soldier’s lives. He couldn’t let anyone kill for him. 

“We are not like them,” the village Head said before Aang had the time to voice his thoughts, “We are not killers. They will not make us killers.”

“But _they_ are…” Aang finished for her and looked away. He knew the Fire Nation had no trouble killing and murdering, but still, he couldn’t do the same. He wondered if he’d ever be driven to do the same. Was that what being the Avatar entailed? Kill before the others turn killers. He didn’t want to accept this new reality where a whole nation was signifying danger. A whole cast of fire-benders the enemy. All he could think about was his friends who were fire-benders. Or…had been fire-benders. They would all be more than a hundred year old now. They would all perish by now. 

“Sokka, Katara, Aang,” the old woman said, “Go hide.”

“But—,” Sokka started.

“An order, soldier,” the woman said and grabbed Sokka’s cheeks with both her hands, “You want to be a soldier, don’t you? First amendment. Follow your captain’s orders. Today, I am your captain and your commander. I am your head and your leader. But above all, I am your grandmother, and I am _not_ losing my grandson, understood?”

Sokka nodded after a moment of silence. He motioned for Katara and Aang to follow. Katara hugged her grandmother and wiped her icy tears. The wind was not merciful and sorrow stung.

“You go ahead, I have to speak to the head,” Aang said.

“But Aang—“

Aang didn’t take his eyes off Katara’s. He wanted to convey reasons to him yet convoluted. “Please,” he said.

“A moment and I am coming to get you,” Katara said and took Sokka’s arm.

The village had been abandoned. The few houses that kept the few people left were only a distraction for the onlookers. The real hiding bunker resided underground, half a mile away, near the penguin residence. The villagers were cohabitating with the animals, and no one would suspect that humans were hiding close to animal nests.

“Spit it out, boy.”

“I think they’re coming for me,” he said. “Or at least…when they understand who I am, they’ll take me and leave you alone.”

“You’ve found yourself since we last spoke.”

“I did, Ma’am,” he said and looked ahead. The first boat arrived at the coast. More arrows, more ignored warnings. Other boats arrived. They had only to climb up towards the village. Soon, there were no more arrows. Silence assumed the sound before the storm. All things Aang was most afraid of were silent. But he would not be afraid to die. _Fear is only a stop point to the next one_ , his Master had said. _What is the next one?_ Aang had asked. The answer he had been given evaded him now.

“You came back when you could’ve run,” the woman said and said no more. Aang knew she’d stay and fight for him with her warriors. Actions Aang took were actions hard, but noble, in her eyes.

The warriors of the water tribe rushed down from the hill. They rode sleds, and they wore picked boots that helped with ice, and all of them yelled in a war cry of their own. Before the water tribe and the fire benders clashed, Aang opened up his staff and invited the wind to propel him down. He heard Katara cry out for him before he descended into the battle. 

One of the closest warriors hit him with a small fire bullet. It hit Aang’s left forearm. He evaded more fire attacks by using his staff and commanding wind. Some fire attacks were too big for wind alone. He had to jump up, summersault left, fly in a diagonal. “It’s me you want!” he said, but soldiers didn’t seem to hear him. He fell by a body of a fallen warrior whose eyes were crying and his mouth contorted in pain. He was a fire-bender hit by fire. The icy beach battleground had transformed into chaos. 

Just as the water tribe collided with fire benders, he was hefted up. “I’m the Avatar,” he said to the soldier. The soldier was just a boy, close to Sokka’s and Katara’s age. Aang remembered the village Head’s words. Wars fought with children.

“Oh, I hoped you would be,” the boy-soldier said. “An air-bender. And a child.”

“I’ll come willingly,” Aang said. He hoped it would be enough to stop the fighting. 

“Will you, now,” the boy-soldier said and shouted: “Cease fire!”

The surviving water tribe warriors were all captured by fire benders. Aang looked up at the village Head and saw her and Katara being held down, daggers at their throats. 

“This boy claims he’s the Avatar,” the boy-soldier said. “A hundred-year-old Avatar inside a 12-year-old body.”

“I’m 14,” Aang said. The others laughed. “And I will go willingly if you let the others go.”

The boy-soldier pulled him closer in an uncomfortable bind. “And what’s your bargaining chip, boy?”

Aang inhaled deep and invited air then forced it out. He pushed into his captor and they both crashed into the icy ground. He stood up, turned around, and redirected another fire attack. This time from the boy-soldier. “This is my chip,” he said, “and my bargain.”

“Step down,” the boy-soldier motioned to his soldiers, and the others did not meddle in their one-on-one. He was the commander of the fleet, Aang realized. He took off his helmet and showcased an angry red burn mark around his eye. From a young victim of war, in front of Aang stood now a man taken by rage and driven by turbulence.

“I’ll go willingly, if—“

The boy-soldier attacked before Aang had a chance to repeat himself. The flame rushed at Aang, but he ducked right and rolled onto his feet again. He snatched the wind into his hands and rotated it around his fingers. He turned it into small angry storms, on the palms of his hands. After another fire attack, he threw the storms at the enemy. The enemy deflected and returned fire. This time small flames, but fast and many. Aang ducked again and again. Hopped up and down. Some flames hit him and scorched his sleeves and pant legs.

The back-and-forth continued until Aang thought he’d faint. His breath got shallow. His deflections were meeker. His attacks were inconsistent. 

“How is it,” the boy-soldier huffed, “That the Avatar is a child, huh?”

They were circling each other now. Both tired and both wanting to catch the other one in a misfire or mistake. 

“I was in ice,” Aang said, finding no reason to lie. But the boy-soldier—the enemy—laughed. A false laugh. A pretend joke. A challenge. “For one hundred years I was frozen,” Aang continued. Maybe this would distract the enemy. Give Aang a chance to deflect a new attack. All he had to do was deflect until the enemy realized that Aang surrendering was a better option than continuing this futile fight. “I didn’t know who I was at first and—“ he said, but the fire attack almost caught him in flames, rendering him unable to finish. 

“This,” the enemy said and crouched, preparing. “Or,” he said, “You’re a new Avatar, born in hiding, trained since birth, and now sent here to defeat us. I mean, the old grandpa before you must have known he’d better pass the chance of battle to someone who didn’t require a walking stick. But now that I think about it, you do have a walking stick, don’t you.”

Aang was barely holding onto his staff, but as long as he was standing. The enemy got angry fast. The enemy expected to win fast. Aang used this anger to catch the enemy in error. He called upon the remaining strength and dove into the enemy with all force of the wind. The enemy fell and hit a rock. Aang watched him getting up onto one forearm, then the other. Then he stood up and checked his head for blood.

“I’ll go willingly,” Aang repeated, not dare take his eyes off the enemy. 

“I will—“ the enemy cut midsentence, “I will make you pay,” he said and clenched his fists. Then he looked around. “Alright,” he breathed in, “You will come willingly.”

This was enough to push other soldiers into action. They tied the water tribe warriors with rope but did not harm them. Katara and the village Head looked down onto him, both tied up, one with her assessing gaze, the other with worry and disbelief.

_ Thank you _ , Aang mouthed to them as the other soldiers tied his hands behind his back and pushed him and tripped him. The boy-soldier did not look at him. Aang was a prize, and now he was won. Harsh hands grabbed his own and pulled him forward. His strength leaving him, he let himself be shoved into a boat and led toward the big ship. Before they got too far away from the beach, Aang yelled: “Take care of Appa!” hoping they would hear. Hoping they would know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your lovely comments! I was totally planning to scream into the void with this one.


End file.
